1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an improved teaching machine and, more particularly, to an improved teaching machine having greater versatility and visual reinforcement of the learning experience than previous ones.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A number of teaching machines have been disclosed in which a student enters an answer to a displayed problem and the machine confirms the answer if it is correct. These machines have generally not achieved wide acceptance as standard teaching aids for the everyday teaching of subjects to classes of students since all of them have severe disadvantages which prevent them from being practical.
A much improved teaching machine is described in applicant's previous patent application, Ser. No. 382,273, which was filed on July 24, 1973 now U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,909 issued Dec. 16, 1975. That application describes a teaching machine suitable for classroom use which uses a card record member that has recorded thereon visually readable statements of a plurality of problems and corresponding machine readable answers. In using the machine, the student first inserts the card and advances it in a step by step manner therethrough. The problems are positioned on the card in such a manner that a different one of them appears in a viewing aperture after each advance step. The student enters on the keyboard of the machine what he thinks to be the answer to the problem visisble in the viewing aperture. The machine compares the answer entered by the student with the correct machine readable answer on the card and displays the answer entered by the student on the display only if the entered answer is correct. The machine includes counters for counting the number of correct answers and the total number of problems attempted, the contents of which counters are accessible only to the teacher having a key. Thus the machine may be used in either a teaching or testing mode.
While the above-described teaching machine offers significant improvements over those of the prior art devices, some aspects of the teaching machine would benefit from further development. One area for development would be to make the machine more versatile so that it can be used in a greater number of classroom and other situations. For example, it would be advantageous to expand the format of problems that can be presented by the machine. Previously known teaching machines generally allow mathematical problems to be presented in only one of either an algorithm or equation format so that the student using such a machine does not gain experience in handling problems presented in the other format.
Another area for development would be to provide means which allow the use of the machine by the student as a calculator so that the student can use the machine to check work he has performed independently of any prescribed training or testing program.
It would also be desirable to provide means to vary the manner in which answers may be entered into the machine. When computing the answer to a mathematical problem having a multidigit answer, the student generally generates the digits of the answer from right to left. In applicant's above-described previous teaching machine and in other prior art machines, however, the digits of the answer must be entered from left to right. This often requires the student to make the calculations on a separate sheet of paper and results in increased transcription errors not related to his mathematical knowledge. Additionally, the ability to use the machine without having to write the answers on a separate sheet of paper would increase the usefulness of the teaching machine for students with learning disabilities which make writing or routine transferrence of information difficult.
It would also be desirable to develop certaiin teaching aspects of the above-described teaching machine relating to reinforcement of the student's learning experience and the teacher's knowledge of particular difficulties encountered by the students. For example, it would be desirable if the machine could display incorrect answers entered by the student as well as correct answers, and indicate to the student which answer is correct.
Additionally, while the above-described teaching machine does record information to tell the teacher the number of right and wrong answers entered by the student, it provides no way of indicating which problems or types of problems present particular difficulties to an individual student. It would be very helpful if the teacher could learn from the machine which specific problems the student has answered incorrectly, and also obtain some indication of how many incorrect attempts were made to answer the problem.